Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Space History: Military Space Mission, and My Role In It

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Twenty years ago yesterday — November 22, 1989 — astronauts Frederick D. Gregory, John E. Blaha, Kathyrn C. Thornton, F. Story Musgrave, and Manley L Carter, Jr., lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-33.*

(STS-33 mission patch. NASA image. Click to enlarge.)

STS-33 was a classified Department of Defense mission, and one of the four shuttle missions I worked as part of the Air Force Flight Test Center’s Space Shuttle Recovery Team. Edwards AFB was the “abort once-around” recovery site, so we were in place (at the fire department) several hours before the launch in case the shuttle had to land right after liftoff. We also stayed on standby the entire time the shuttle was in orbit. And since this shuttle landed at Edwards AFB on November 27, we rolled out to meet the vehicle, parked right off the nose of the orbiter while NASA checked it out and the crew disembarked, and escorted the shuttle down the flightline to NASA-Dryden.

That was a fun job….

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*Editor’s note: One NASA site had this launch listed for November 23, but it looks as if that was wrong. I think that may be when the crew actually deployed the classified satellite.

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Four Launches: Scout, Thor-Delta, Atlas-Centaur, Titan

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This day in space history, November 21, was a busy day for launches. They were launched at five-year intervals, but still …

Today in 1964 — 45 years ago — NASA launched its first dual payload when it sent up Explorer-24 and Explorer-25 on a Scout rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base.


(A Scout vehicle launch from 1967. National Air & Space Museum image.)

Forty years ago today, in 1969, the United Kingdom sent up its first communications satellite. Skynet-1 launched on a Thor-Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral.

On November 21, 1974 — 35 years ago — an Atlas-Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Intelsat IV F-8 communications satellite.

And 30 years ago today, in 1979, a Titan-IIIC rocket out of Cape Canaveral sent up two Defense Satellite Communication System satellites, DSCS II-13 and DSCS II-14.

We shouldn’t forget, of course, that 40 years ago today the U.S. also had astronauts returning from the moon. Mission Commander Charles Conrad, Jr., Command Module pilot Richard F. Gordon, and Lunar Module pilot Alan L. Bean made their transearth injection at 3:49 p.m. EST on November 21st, 1969.

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An Astronomer's Astronomer, and a New Space Telescope

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One hundred twenty years ago today in space history — November 20, 1889 — astronomer Edwin P. Hubble was born in Marshfield, Missouri.


(Edwin Hubble, next to the Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory. NASA image.)

Hubble earned his B.S. in mathematics and astronomy at the University of Chicago in 1910, and studied law at Oxford University as one of the first Rhodes Scholars. He served briefly in World War I, and returned to earn his doctorate at the University of Chicago. He spent his entire professional career at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles. Among his discoveries, Hubble:

  • Found that Andromeda is a separate galaxy from our Milky Way
  • Went on to discover dozens of new galaxies outside our own
  • Classified galaxy types, as shown here
  • Calculated the rate of expansion of the universe

NASA, of course, honored Hubble by naming their most famous space telescope after him.


(Hubble Space Telescope. NASA image.)

And speaking of space telescopes, 5 years ago today, in 2004, NASA launched the Swift Telescope — also known as the Gamma Ray Burst Explorer, or Explorer-84 — on a Delta-II rocket from Cape Canaveral. The spacecraft, named after the bird, carried three instruments to detect and locate gamma ray bursts.

(Swift mission patch. Click to enlarge. NASA image.)

I think Edwin Hubble would be thrilled to see the new discoveries that have been made, by the telescope that bears his name as well as other, specialized instruments.

And I wonder what’s next….

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Speaking of Chinese Space Ambitions…

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Ten years ago today in space history — November 19, 1999 — the People’s Republic* of China launched an unmanned Shenzhou capsule on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiquan launch center.

The capsule was an enlarged version of the Russian Soyuz design, developed for a human space flight program originally known as “Project 921.” According to SPACEWARN Bulletin 553, the vehicle “carried a mannequin for test purposes” and “parachuted down in Inner Mongolia after orbiting for 21 hours.”

The renamed Shenzhou program would successfully place a Chinese astronaut (a “taikonaut”) in orbit not quite four years later, in October 2003.

I wonder how much the Chinese owe to Hughes and Loral for the success of this flight and the Shenzhou program. Did the Chinese engineers and technicians rework anything on this Long March rocket after the accident investigations into the Optus, Apstar, and Intelsat launch failures? (I refer readers to chapter five and chapter six of the Cox Commission Report for background.) We’ll never know. They would have gotten to this point eventually, no doubt.

Flash forward** to yesterday in space history: NASA announced that they intend to explore cooperative space ventures with the Chinese (not quite a year after the last Administration turned the idea down). The message now? Steal our technical know-how, and continue to violate your own people’s human rights, but we’ll still cooperate with you in the greatest adventure of Mankind.

For more on Chinese space ambitions, see this thread in the Space Warfare Forum.

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*Young people, or people who don’t understand what the fuss is all about, may not recognize the irony of a Communist country calling itself a “republic,” and especially a “people’s republic.” See “doublespeak,” as in “Orwellian.”

**Not to be confused with Robert J. Sawyer’s excellent novel, Flash Forward, which I understand is also a pretty good television show.

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Searching the Cosmos for Background Radiation

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Twenty Years Ago — November 18, 1989 — the Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE, was launched atop a Delta rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Here’s the 20th anniversary press release.


(Artist’s depiction of the COBE spacecraft. NASA image.)

And here’s a link to another nice artist’s conception of the spacecraft.

COBE was designed to measure the microwave background radiation left from the early universe. COBE carried three instruments:

  • Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE), to search for infrared background radiation
  • Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR), to map the cosmic radiation
  • Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS), to compare the background radiation to a known standard

The astrophysics behind it are beyond me, but I like the pretty pictures.

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World Speed Record: 7,000 MPH

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Five years ago today — November 16, 2004 — the X-43A hypersonic test vehicle broke the world speed record.


(X-43A initial velocity was provided by a Pegasus rocket. NASA image.)

Its scramjet engine accelerated it to mach 9.6, nearly 7,000 miles per hour. The record it broke was its own, of mach 6.8 (nearly 5,000 mph), set on a March 2004 flight.

Of personal interest to me, a Pegasus rocket dropped from NASA’s B-52 provided the initial thrust to get the X-43A up to the flight regime where the scramjet engine would work.


(X-43A, Pegasus, and B-52 mothership. The X-43A is the small dark vehicle covering the words “U.S. Air Force.” NASA image.)

That gives me a personal, though indirect, connection to the flight: I was on the Flight Readiness Review Committee for the very first Pegasus launch when I was stationed at Edwards AFB.

Yes, I had a most fascinating Air Force career. (Fascinating to me, anyway.)

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Mississippi Damned

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This weekend’s “proud papa” moment: seeing the movie MISSISSIPPI DAMNED — for which my daughter Stephanie was the “Key Set Production Assistant” — at the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington. It’s a moving and sometimes disturbing portrait of a family trapped in cycles of poverty and abuse, and was filmed in the little town of Ahoskie, North Carolina. The acting was extremely good; for a sample, here’s the YouTube trailer.

The producers are looking for support to get the movie into theaters, but that probably won’t happen until next year. Keep an eye out!

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Space History: The Moon, Then and Now

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Forty years ago today — November 14, 1969 — astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr., Alan L. Bean, and Richard F. Gordon, Jr., blasted off atop Saturn V rocket SA-507 on Apollo-12, the second lunar landing mission. President Richard Nixon attended, and became the first U.S. President to attend a launch.


(Apollo-12 launch. NASA image.)

On the ascent, the Saturn V was hit by lightning while it passed through a low cloud. This was the first such event in the program; the electrical discharge passed through the Saturn vehicle to the ground. After NASA confirmed the lightning had done no damage, the crew proceeded to the Moon.


(Apollo-12 mission logo. NASA image.)

While Gordon orbited in the Command Module “Yankee Clipper,” Conrad and Bean descended to the lunar surface on the 19th of November in the Lunar Module “Intrepid.” They landed on Oceanus Procellarum, the “Ocean of Storms,” and began their excursions. The mission included several milestones:

  • First time the surface crew went out on two EVA periods.
  • Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) deployed for the first time.
  • First time a geologist planned lunar surface activities in real time.
  • First-ever return of spacecraft parts from the lunar surface: from the Surveyor-3 lander.
  • First multi-spectral imagery of lunar terrain from lunar orbit.

That was then, and this is now: If you didn’t catch the news from NASA yesterday, the recent LCROSS mission confirmed the presence of water in the shadowed crater Cabeus at the Moon’s south pole. This is great news for future lunar exploration — and for those of us who have written stories about lunar exploration!

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On Veterans' Day, Thank You

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Last year I posted a bit about why Veterans’ Day embarrasses me, and also about the National Veterans Freedom Park that’s to be built in Cary, NC.

As much as I still feel that Veterans’ Day is for those other veterans, those “real” veterans who endured hardships and battle, in contrast to veterans like me whose brushes with danger were few and brief and who endured more inconveniences than hardships, I confess that I’ve gotten to the point that it annoys me when I hear casual disregard and even disdain for our country and our freedoms from those who never served, never considered serving, and never supported anyone who served.

Not everyone is suited to military service, or to the rigors that go along with being in a military family, and I don’t begrudge anyone’s choice to pursue some other calling than the military. But I think it’s easier for those with no military connections, and especially those who, in their heart of hearts, would do anything other than don a uniform and shoulder a weapon, to take our nation and especially the liberties we enjoy for granted.

I don’t go so far as science fiction grand master Robert A. Heinlein, who wrote in Time Enough for Love (specifically, in the “Notebooks of Lazarus Long”),

Those who refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined as ‘murder’ in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be ‘Using deadly weapons inside city limits,’ or ‘Creating a traffic hazard,’ or ‘Endangering bystanders,’ or other misdemeanor.

But I do maintain that those of us who are quick to assert the rights guaranteed to us under the Constitution, and even “rights” the Founding Fathers never considered, should express some measure of gratitude to those who have sworn to defend that Constitution, and to “secure the blessings of liberty” at any cost, up to and including their lives.

So, to all who wore the uniform, those who would have worn the uniform if they could, and those who supported a uniformed Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine, or Coastguardsman — and especially to those who are serving today, at home or abroad — thank you, and may God guide and protect you.

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Space Truckin', For Real

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Twenty-five years ago today — November 8, 1984 — Space Shuttle Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51A. Astronauts Frederick H. (Rick) Hauck, David M. Walker, Joseph P. Allen, Anna L. Fisher, and Dale A. Gardner deployed two satellites, Telesat-H (Anik) and Syncom-IV-I (also known as LEASAT-1), and retrieved two disabled communications satellites, Palapa-B2 and Westar-VI.


(Astronauts Gardner and Allen on the Remote Manipulator System after capturing Westar VI. Note the “For Sale” sign. NASA image.)

It was the first time two satellites were captured for return to earth, and demonstrated a capability that only the space shuttle had (and still has, for as long as we continue to operate shuttles*). Their week-long mission ended on the 16th when Discovery landed back at KSC.

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*Makes me wonder if a space-retrieval capability could be a money-maker for some savvy space entrepreneurs….

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